FEEL IT
Some Girls


Sometimes, when I'm really bored, I think of Juliana Hatfield and how her solo career has gone downhill since the release of her first album Hey Babe. Given that the album gave away too many secrets, the confessional music box fit her high girlish voice perfectly. Since then, her music has been a pastiche of soft core melodrama (Beautiful Creature) and hard core posing (Bed). It's not that she writes crappy songs; she will always have an ear for sugary hooks. It's just that she tries too hard to deviate from the easy guitar pop of "Hey Babe" and the result is mostly confused. Contrived, at best. So it's surprising that with Some Girls (with Heidi Gluck and blake baby Freda Love), Juliana has gone back to her college rock roots. Feel It is hazy afternoon-crumpled sheets rock. There's little distortion in the guitar, and the riffs come out clean and memorable. It's your basic guitar-bass-drum record, and though it might sound under-produced to others, there's an endearing, lazy charm to the girls' subdued rocking. "Necessito" is sneering and simmering, while acoustic ballad "Almost True" is quitely heartbreaking and a true return to form: I've seen the girl of your dreams / Is it hard sweetheart to wake up next to me? Some Girls never truly rock out, and they don't have to. Maybe it's only now that Juliana realizes that she doesn't have to prove anything anymore. ***1/2